Coral Cliff sits at 165 Gloucester Avenue on the Hip Strip and is the largest gaming floor in Montego Bay: slots, table games, an arcade, three bars and food outlets, marketed as running around the clock. It was a hotel before it was any of that, and the building has changed hands and names enough times that parts of its recent history are genuinely unclear. We will tell you which parts.
History
The house before the hotel
The property began as a private house. The record of Jamaican hotel history describes it as originally the home of an American named Doubleday, with Dr and Mrs Clark taking it over and developing it as a hotel that was operating by 1930. We should be plain here: that source gives a surname and nothing more. It is tempting to attach it to the American publishing family of the same name, and you will see that claim made, but we have not found evidence that establishes which Doubleday this was, so we are not going to make it.
What is clearer is the hotel's long life. It later passed to Hotel Casa Blanca and May Belle Ewen. A postcard from 1971 shows a rebuilt structure, and the property was extensively refurbished in the mid 1980s. The original hotel sat back on the cliff rather than at the roadside, which is worth remembering when you are standing on Gloucester Avenue looking at the current frontage: this is not simply the 1930 building with a new sign on it. Guest rooms were still operating at least as late as 2008.
From bedrooms to slot machines
At some point in that long decline the place became known as a small slots casino, and then as the Coral Cliff Entertainment Centre. In March 2013 Supreme Ventures Limited opened an Acropolis Gaming Lounge in Montego Bay, and the space it took over was the one previously run as the Coral Cliff Entertainment Centre. The Coral Cliff name has since returned to the address as Coral Cliff Gaming and Entertainment. The ownership chain across those years is not clearly documented in public sources, and rather than construct a tidy narrative we will say that it is not.
Why it is not a casino, whatever the signage says
You will see the word casino used about this venue. It is worth knowing what Jamaican law actually permits. The Casino Gaming Act of 2010 allows casino gaming only inside an approved integrated resort development, a large mixed tourism precinct rather than a standalone gambling house, and more than fifteen years on no casino resort has opened in Jamaica. Regulations to make the framework operational were still being approved in 2025. What exists on the Hip Strip is a licensed gaming lounge. It is a large and lively one, but it is not Las Vegas and it is not pretending to be, whatever the marketing suggests.
The street
Gloucester Avenue was officially renamed Jimmy Cliff Boulevard on 28 March 2019 for the reggae singer and actor. Nobody in Montego Bay says it. Both names get you to the same door.
What it costs and when it opens
There is no entrance fee. You pay by playing, and by eating and drinking. The venue advertises gaming around the clock, though we would confirm hours by phone before turning up at 4am. Signing up to the Players Club is free and the venue has offered a small play credit, in the region of US$5, on first sign up.
Food and drink come from three outlets on site, Bubble and Spice, the Lava Bar and the Tuck Shop, and are priced for the Hip Strip, meaning higher than the rest of Montego Bay. The old hotel side of the operation is not advertised on the venue's current website. If you want a room here, ask directly rather than assuming.
What it is actually like
Bright, air conditioned, loud with machine noise, and busiest when a cruise ship is in. The arcade section makes it usable for families in the day in a way most gaming venues are not, and the live entertainment programme leans on reggae and dancehall acts in the evening.
It is at its best as shelter. On a Hip Strip afternoon at 33 degrees, or in an afternoon downpour, a cold air conditioned room with a bar and something to do is worth more than the view you came for. It is at its worst if you were expecting a proper casino floor, for the legal reasons above.
Decide your limit before you sit down and stop when you reach it. Loyalty credit and free play are marketing, not winnings.
How it fits a day
Coral Cliff is a filler and a finisher, not an anchor. We drop it into the hot middle of a Hip Strip day, roughly 1pm to 3pm, between a morning at Doctor's Cave and an evening on Gloucester, or at the end of the night when the bars are thinning and it is one of the few places still running. It is a short walk from Doctor's Cave Beach and a few minutes from Harmony Beach Park, so it needs no separate journey. Do not build a day around it.
